{"id":922,"date":"2026-07-12T11:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T11:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=922"},"modified":"2026-07-12T11:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T11:11:15","slug":"trumps-economic-war-on-black-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=922","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s economic war on Black America"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Donald Trump claims he is a great friend to Black America. He loves \u201cmy African Americans,\u201d he says, and claims to be the greatest president for Black people <\/span>since Abraham Lincoln<\/span>. He has pledged to <\/span>protect \u201cBlack jobs\u201d<\/span> from \u201cillegal aliens,\u201d and that he will bring the <\/span>factories back to America<\/span> so that Black men can get good jobs working on assembly lines. Trump, of course,<\/span> believes that Black Americans <\/span>love him back<\/span>:<\/span> he won <\/span>15% of the Black vote<\/span> in 2024, up from 8% in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Ted Cruz warns James Talarico has \u201creal chance\u201d to flip Texas Senate seat<\/a><\/p>\n

Racism and white supremacy \u2014 not \u201cworking class\u201d anxiety \u2014 lifted Trump to the White House twice. The president is fluent in crude racism and white racist conspiracy theories, and he has been explicit about his role as defender and champion of White America and MAGA.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But racism is much more than words, intent or what is in a person\u2019s heart. It is also determined by outcomes and policies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But racism is much more than words, intent or what is in a person\u2019s heart. It is also determined by outcomes and policies. By that standard, Donald Trump is engaging in economic warfare against Black America, and it will take generations to recover from the damage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s policies have, both directly and indirectly, <\/span>increased the unemployment rate<\/span> for Black Americans, who are approximately 13% of the U.S. population and have long faced disproportionate levels of unemployment and lack of access to employment and high-wage jobs. While the national unemployment rate stands at approximately 4.3%, the Black unemployment rate is almost double. At 7.3%, it is approaching Covid-19 pandemic-era levels. The reality is far bleaker. Because of how the data is collected and analyzed, the true unemployment rate <\/span>is usually (at least) twice<\/span> the official unemployment rate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview with TheGrio, Trump was <\/span>asked about the increase in Black unemployment<\/span> since he took office. \u201cWe\u2019re doing very well with the Black jobs, African-American jobs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe saw some numbers that we\u2019re doing really well.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A 7.3% unemployment rate among white Americans would be considered a national emergency.<\/span><\/p>\n

The real numbers are quite different. Black unemployment did hit a record low of 5.3% during Trump\u2019s first term \u2014 the lowest the Bureau of Labor Statistics had ever recorded \u2014 until Joe Biden brought it down to 4.8%. Since Trump returned to office, the Black unemployment rate has only gone up from 6.2% in January 2025 to 8% last fall,<\/span> according to the New York Times<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

A large portion of the blame for that can be laid directly at the feet of the president and congressional Republicans. Government employment has long been a ladder to economic security for Black Americans, but Trump kicked it out from under them. Draconian budget cuts and other policies by MAGA Republicans have devastated the Black professional and managerial class. Black women have suffered a disproportionate amount of this pain; <\/span>more than 300,000<\/span> have left the labor force since June 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is part of a broader assault on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. The administration has basically stopped enforcing anti-discrimination laws that protect the rights of minorities and other marginalized groups in the workplace and employment. Instead, it is focusing on the phantasm of reverse discrimination and racism against white people, specifically white men.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Lindsey Graham, from Trump critic to ally, dies at 71<\/a><\/p>\n

Race and class overlap in America. As sociologists and other experts have repeatedly demonstrated, a person is <\/span>not poor because they are Black or brown<\/span>. However, being Black or brown makes a person far more likely to be poor and materially disadvantaged \u2014 and to stay poor across generations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this reality, and even as the ladder is being kicked out from under them, Black and brown Americans have not abandoned the idea of America.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the paradox at the center of the color line and the American story: The people paying the highest price for Trump\u2019s economy are also among the most invested in the promise of America.<\/span><\/p>\n

A new <\/span>report from Navigator Research<\/span> found that over 80% of Black and Latino Americans say being American is central to their identity, a figure that is on par with white Americans. But belief in the American dream is fading. Only 20% of Blacks and Latinos think it remains achievable, compared with 27% of white Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the current trends hold, there will be many more economically precarious Black and brown Americans \u2014 and more on both sides of the color line \u2014 at the end of Trump\u2019s second term than at its beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Black America\u2019s economic challenges are not just a Black problem. It is an American problem, and its costs will not be limited to Black people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Black America is the miner\u2019s canary.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a 2001 <\/span>speech<\/span> at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, legal scholar Lani Guinier made this very point, arguing that the country has \u201ctried to locate the problem in the canary, when in fact the canary is signaling to us a much bigger problem with the atmosphere in the mine that is affecting all of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge,\u201d she continued, \u201cis not to pathologize the canary, not to outfit the canary with a little pint-sized gas mask so that it can withstand the toxic atmosphere in the mine. The challenge is to fix the atmosphere in the mine so all of us can breathe cleaner air.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The American people desperately need that clean air right now. Getting it will take social democracy and real populism, not the fake populism and racial authoritarianism of Donald Trump and his MAGA experiment. Their politics is toxic and smothering for nearly everyone breathing it, including the president\u2019s own followers who inhale it the deepest, confusing poison for life-nurturing oxygen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Trump: \u201c1000 missiles are locked and loaded\u201d for Iran if he\u2019s killed<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president says he loves \u201cmy African Americans.” His policies tell a different story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1243,4,5,341,221,1244],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-black-america","tag-commentary","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-republicans","tag-unemployment"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s economic war on Black America - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=922\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s economic war on Black America - Relocation Across America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The president says he loves \u201cmy African Americans." 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